The Documents.
Read Them Yourself.

Effective May 1, 2026; expires April 30, 2031. Contains the outfall descriptions, effluent limitations, monitoring requirements, industrial pretreatment program references, and the fact sheet describing how the permit was developed. Permit writer: Evan Walters. Signed by Deputy Regional Permit Administrator Trendon Choe.

Two hundred pages of comments and DEC responses, including submissions from the Onondaga Nation, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Sierra Club CNY, Clean Water Action, the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, CHIPS Communities United, and individual residents. This is the record of what the public asked for and what DEC chose to change — or not change. Authored by Alison Wasserbauer.

DEC’s written determination under the State Environmental Quality Review Act that the project’s environmental impacts have been avoided or mitigated to the maximum extent practicable. Includes findings on wetlands, surface water, stormwater, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and cumulative impacts with the Micron campus. Signed by Regional Permit Administrator Kevin M. Balduzzi.

Five pages. DEC’s formal finding that issuing the Oak Orchard permit would be inconsistent with attainment of statewide greenhouse gas emission reductions under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The document then justifies issuance on the basis that the project serves the Micron facility, which “directly and materially serves national security interests” under the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2021.

213 pages. Prepared by Brown and Caldwell, subconsultant to EDR and Critical Path Engineering Solutions, for the Onondaga County Department of Water Environment Protection. Signed by Matthew John Marko, PE, NY License 76324, under the Professional Engineer seal of the State of New York. Contains the full alternatives analysis (11 alternatives considered, Alternatives 10 and 11 selected), the FAB1 and FAB2 mass balances, and — on page 164 — the table of Projected Water Quality Based Effluent Limits for the Oneida River discharge. The PFOS line item in that table reads 1,136 µg/L. That is 284,000 times the federal EPA drinking water MCL of 4.0 ng/L. The entire treatment plan for PFAS, on page 1-9, begins with “Micron stated during the workshops” and concludes that PFAS “can be removed in the biological treatment.” Biological treatment has never destroyed PFAS.

The document is stamped “CONFIDENTIAL — Exempt from FOIL per POL 87(2)(c)&(d)” on the first page of the Executive Summary and the first page of Section 3. Public Officers Law §87(2)(c) is the trade-secrets exemption; §87(2)(d) is the exemption for records whose disclosure would impair an imminent contract award. The County is asserting this document is legally shielded from FOIL requests — twice over. The same County has hosted the file on its public web server, at static.ongov.net/WEP/OakOrchard_WWTP/permitting/SPDES/Engineering-Reports/, since November 2025. As of April 22, 2026, the URL is still live, indexed by search engines, and linked from the County’s own Public Review Documents page.

Four pages. NYSDEC’s first formal Request for Additional Information after reviewing the County’s August 28, 2025 resubmission. Comment #2 directly asks: “Has OCDWEP evaluated installing MBRs with nanofiltration capabilities and/or reverse osmosis treatment to remove these pollutants to levels recommended by the NYSDOH?” Cc’d to Carol Lamb-Lafay (Director, Division of Water), Brown and Caldwell, and Carollo Engineers. Signed by Trendon Choe, Deputy Regional Permit Administrator, Region 7.

Eight pages. Carollo Engineers’ written response to NYSDEC’s first RFAI on behalf of OCDWEP. The PFAS response (Comment #2) contains the engineer’s on-the-record admission about the County’s biosolids strategy: “There is research indicating that dried Biosolids may have less of some PFAS than the feed sludge, but it’s likely just through transformation of one PFAS to another in the exhaust or condensate streams. We are not suggesting that drying destroys PFAS.” The response further states the County will rely on a 10 ng/L SPDES action level for PFOA/PFOS only, and will “look upstream to source control” if exceeded.

Three pages. NYSDEC’s second formal RFAI. On the PFAS question, DEC explicitly directs the County to address how PFAS will be handled in the Industrial Wastewater Discharge Permit (IWDP) the County will issue to Micron, and to discuss “proposed measures by the industry including any source separation, and technological treatment measures such as nanofiltration, GAC, ion exchange, and foam fractionation.” The Department was, on the record, asking the County to characterize Micron’s PFAS treatment technology before the SPDES permit could be considered complete. Cc’d to Carol Lamb-Lafay.

Three pages. Carollo Engineers’ written response to NYSDEC’s second RFAI. The PFAS response acknowledges the County’s plan to issue an IWDP to Micron “consistent with the USEPA-approved pretreatment program and the requirements of the Oak Orchard WWTP SPDES permit for PFAS,” and concludes with the statement at the center of the campaign’s argument: “Development of local limits for the ITT and MTT were not identified as a critical path issue for issuance of the SPDES permit. Though the County has made significant progress on these, the IWDP was not identified as a critical path related to the issuance of a SPDES permit. The bulk of the information requested will be made available in the coming months as the ITT/IWDP development proceeds.” NYSDEC signed the permit five months later on April 10, 2026.

ForeverChemicals NY’s formal letter to Hope Knight, President, CEO and Commissioner of Empire State Development, identifying the gap in Micron’s Green CHIPS Sustainability Plan: the term “sustainable wastewater management” appears in the agreement but has never been defined. The letter cites DEC’s December 2025 TOGS 1.3.14 guidance and the SIA’s own 2025 survey data (840 ng/L average PFAS in fab effluent — 210 times the federal drinking water limit) to argue that the term, for a 30.8 MGD semiconductor discharger upstream of a drinking water intake serving 500,000 Central New Yorkers, must be defined to require five things: full PFAS chemical disclosure to Onondaga County and DEC without NDA restrictions; non-targeted PFAS characterization of Micron’s wastewater completed before the design-build contract is awarded; PFAS destruction technology rather than filtration or concentration; annual public reporting of PFAS discharge concentrations; and a commitment that Micron will not use NDAs with chemical vendors to block engineers from knowing what they are designing for. Transmitted by USPS Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested. Cc: Governor Kathy Hochul; NYSDEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton; NYSERDA President Doreen Harris; NYSDEC Division of Water Director Carol Lamb-LaFay, P.E.; Onondaga County Executive J. Ryan McMahon II; Sierra Club CNY Conservation Chair Don Hughes.

Formal Freedom of Information Law request submitted to Empire State Development under Public Officers Law Article 6, §§ 84–90. The request seeks Micron Technology’s submitted Green CHIPS Sustainability Plan in all draft and approved versions; the ESD-developed Sustainability Plan template and any associated guidance documents provided to Green CHIPS applicants; all annual progress reports Micron has submitted under the Green CHIPS program addressing greenhouse gas emissions, water use, water reuse, wastewater management, biosolids management, and chemical management; and ESD’s approval documentation, including the approval letter or written determination, any conditions or modifications imposed by ESD or NYSERDA, and any compliance reviews, non-compliance findings, corrective action requests, or remediation requirements issued to Micron to date. Transmitted by USPS Certified Mail with parallel email submission to ESD’s FOIL Records Access Officer.

Original Freedom of Information Law request filed under Public Officers Law Article 6 with the Onondaga County Division of Purchase, FOIL Records Access Officer. The request sought three discrete categories of records relating to the Oak Orchard Wastewater Treatment Plant Industrial Treatment Train design-build RFQ that closed on or about September 26, 2025: (1) the list of firms that submitted Statements of Qualifications; (2) any shortlist of firms selected for further consideration; and (3) any scoring sheets, evaluation matrices, or summary documents used to evaluate respondents, with legitimately exempt personal information redacted. The request expressly stated: “I am not requesting proprietary technical or pricing information submitted by respondents. I am requesting only the identity of firms that responded and any shortlist resulting from the county’s review.” Acknowledged by the County FOIL Office on March 30, 2026 as Case Number F000165-032026.

Denial letter from Judy Fougnier, Executive Secretary and Assistant FOIL Records Access Officer for Onondaga County, denying FOIL Request F000165-032026 in full. The County asserts that disclosure is barred by Public Officers Law § 87(2)(c) (records that “if disclosed would impair present or imminent contract awards”) and § 87(2)(d) (records that would “cause substantial injury to the competitive position of the subject enterprise”). The County’s position, in plain language: taxpayers are not entitled to know which firms are competing for a $550 million publicly-funded wastewater treatment plant that will treat semiconductor wastewater discharged into a drinking water source for 500,000 Central New Yorkers. The denial does not engage with the request’s express exclusion of proprietary technical or pricing information. Issued thirty days after the request was acknowledged, on the day before NYSDEC’s separate post-permit responsiveness deadline.

Six-section administrative appeal filed under Public Officers Law § 89(4)(a). The appeal demonstrates that neither § 87(2)(c) nor § 87(2)(d) supports the County’s categorical denial: (I) the request was narrowly scoped to firm identities and expressly excluded proprietary content; (II) § 87(2)(c) requires an “imminent” contract award and the County’s own position that the contract has “not yet been fully executed” is the converse of that standard, and Committee on Open Government precedent holds that bidder identities on a public works procurement do not, standing alone, fall within § 87(2)(c)’s protection; (III) § 87(2)(d) protects the bidder’s competitive position and commercially sensitive content, not the bare fact that a firm has submitted a qualifications statement on a publicly-advertised RFQ; (IV) § 89(3) requires partial disclosure where full denial is unwarranted; and (V) public interest considerations weigh strongly toward disclosure given that the Onondaga County Legislature is currently considering bond authorization for the project. The appeal requests a written determination within ten business days as required by § 89(4)(a). Filed by email at 12:49 a.m. on May 9, 2026, threaded against Case F000165-032026.